Where can I find congressional votes on old legislation?
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 29, 2024, 12:15:11 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Discussion
  History (Moderator: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee)
  Where can I find congressional votes on old legislation?
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: Where can I find congressional votes on old legislation?  (Read 382 times)
Chunk Yogurt for President!
CELTICEMPIRE
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 6,235
Georgia


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: April 10, 2021, 01:22:57 AM »

It's very difficult to find information on how many congressmen voted for or against certain pieces of legislation from the 18th or 19th century.  This is especially true for anything before 1850.

For instance, when the US voted to prohibit the slave trade in 1807, how many people voted against that?
Logged
darklordoftech
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,391
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2021, 01:26:50 AM »

It's very difficult to find information on how many congressmen voted for or against certain pieces of legislation from the 18th or 19th century.  This is especially true for anything before 1850.

For instance, when the US voted to prohibit the slave trade in 1807, how many people voted against that?
I recall seeing who voted for and who voted against banning the slave trade in 1807 on http://govtrack.us
Logged
Chunk Yogurt for President!
CELTICEMPIRE
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 6,235
Georgia


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2021, 01:33:22 AM »

It's very difficult to find information on how many congressmen voted for or against certain pieces of legislation from the 18th or 19th century.  This is especially true for anything before 1850.

For instance, when the US voted to prohibit the slave trade in 1807, how many people voted against that?
I recall seeing who voted for and who voted against banning the slave trade in 1807 on http://govtrack.us

I can find the bill, but I can't find the information about who voted for or against it.
Logged
Storr
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,094
Moldova, Republic of


WWW Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2021, 12:32:50 PM »

I found the govtrack.us pages for the 1807 importation of slaves law on wikipedia (how individual senators/representatives voted is at the bottom of the webpage):

Senate: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-1/s1

House: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-2/h131
Logged
Paul Weller
HenryWallaceVP
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 3,217
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2021, 12:56:53 PM »

I found the govtrack.us pages for the 1807 importation of slaves law on wikipedia (how individual senators/representatives voted is at the bottom of the webpage):

Senate: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-1/s1

House: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-2/h131

Why in God's name did JQA vote against banning the slave trade? Pickering I can see, but JQA? It is an outrage that the Massachusetts senatorial delegation voted in line with Georgia and South Carolina on the issue of slavery.
Logged
darklordoftech
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,391
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2021, 01:06:59 PM »

I found the govtrack.us pages for the 1807 importation of slaves law on wikipedia (how individual senators/representatives voted is at the bottom of the webpage):

Senate: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-1/s1

House: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-2/h131

Why in God's name did JQA vote against banning the slave trade? Pickering I can see, but JQA? It is an outrage that the Massachusetts senatorial delegation voted in line with Georgia and South Carolina on the issue of slavery.
Maybe the bill also strengthened slavery in some way?
Logged
Unconditional Surrender Truman
Harry S Truman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 14,142


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2021, 02:02:54 PM »

This is only a guess, but prior to 1807 New England merchants were deeply invested in the Atlantic slave trade and were resultantly extremely reluctant to abolish what was a lucrative source of revenue for themselves and their economies. In Jefferson's account of the negotiations over his draft Declaration of Independence, he places the blame for the deletion of a clause condemning the slave trade on South Carolina, but it probably elicited equally strong opposition from the New England states who did not want to give up the profits from the traffic of slaves even if the institution itself was less essential to the Yankee economy. Meanwhile, slave states in the Western interior like Tennessee and Kentucky were more willing to endorse abolition of the trade, as they lacked seaports to which African captives could be imported and thus were reliant on the internal slave trade via New Orleans and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

As such, while it has sometimes been overlooked, the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade was a very big deal in that it eliminated (to a large degree) the financial incentive for the Yankee merchant class to support the continuation of slavery. In spite of this, reliance of New England textile mills on Southern cotton through the first half of the nineteenth century (as well as Northern reliance on such products as sugar and coffee that were also produced by slave labor) meant that Northern manufacturers were still very hesitant to endorse a frontal attack on slavery —that is until the changing economic environment of the 1850s made slavery a (perceived) greater threat to business than the loss of Southern raw materials.

It is surprising coming from JQA, given his later strident opposition to slavery, but we must remember that this was relatively early in his career when he was still hoping to be reelected to the Senate. Like many ex-presidents, he felt considerably freer to speak his mind and go against the political consensus after leaving the White House, when his service in the House of Representatives was essentially a favor to his constituents and not a stepping stone to higher and greater things.
Logged
Unconditional Surrender Truman
Harry S Truman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 14,142


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2021, 02:33:25 PM »

For anyone interested in a visual representation of the geography of the slave trade debate, I have made this map of the Senate vote.

In all, five slave state senators voted in favor of passage and four free state senators voted against. (Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island among the free states still permitted those born before passed of their manumission acts to be held as slaves—New Jersey, in fact, had only adopted it plan of gradual emancipation the previous year.)


There were only five Nays in the House: Silas Betton of New Hampshire, Martin Chittendale of Massachusetts, James Garnett and Abram Trigg of Virginia, and David Williams of South Carolina.
Logged
Unconditional Surrender Truman
Harry S Truman
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 14,142


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2021, 03:26:08 PM »

Found this in a very old dissertation (c. 1973) titled "John Quincy Adams and Slavery."

Quote from: Nancy Rosendahl, "John Quincy Adams and Slavery," MA dissertation (North Texas State University, 1973) 7.
Included with the Louisiana territorial bill was an amendment prohibiting the importation of slaves into the territory from another state except by a citizen of the United States, and also prohibiting the importation of slaves into the territory from any port in the territory or through any state allowing importation. Although he believed slavery was morally wrong, it did have its uses in connection with commerce. He believed that the amendment's provisions for the prevention of importation of slaves were insufficient, and he refused to accept the constitutional right of Congress to legislate for the territory. Later on, when another bill was placed before the Senate to prohibit the slave-trade as soon as constitutionally possible, Adams objected once more on constitutional grounds, contending that such a law could not be passed until after 1808. Adams' refusal to accept the Louisiana territorial bill and the prohibition of the slave trade before 1808 were predictable for he was a strict constructionist of the Constitution and remained so all of his life. In later life he was to once more come upon the slavery problem in relation to the right of petition. Even then, while believing that slavery was wrong, he denied the right of Congress to abolish slavery, believing that it was not part of its constitutional powers.

I do not know if this is interpretation in keeping with more recent scholarship on JQA, but it is an interesting perspective on an admittedly perplexing vote in 1805.

(For reference, here is the amendment to the Louisiana territorial bill cited above.)
Logged
Chunk Yogurt for President!
CELTICEMPIRE
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 6,235
Georgia


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2021, 07:55:07 PM »

I found the govtrack.us pages for the 1807 importation of slaves law on wikipedia (how individual senators/representatives voted is at the bottom of the webpage):

Senate: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-1/s1

House: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/9-2/h131

Thanks.  I'm surprised by how close it was.  I was expecting only a few Senators to vote against it.
Logged
🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸
shua
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 25,665
Nepal


Political Matrix
E: 1.29, S: -0.70

WWW Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2021, 09:13:50 PM »

That Senate vote says it was from Dec 17, 1805.  Does not seem to be quite the same legislation that the House voted on in 1807.

Quote
We have to come up for a moment in December of 1805, when a New Englander gets conspicuous again. Stephen Row Bradley, of Vermont, gets up in the Senate and suggests they get cracking on a bill to prohibit slave imports, effective the first of 1808. The time might have seemed ripe, with states calling for a constitutional amendment to permit banning slave imports then and there not that long before, but Bradley’s proposal was taken as too soon all the same. There’s an undercurrent of doubt in all of this as to whether it’s proper for Congress to even consider an import ban before 1808, let alone years in advance.
https://freedmenspatrol.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/new-england-and-the-slave-trade-to-1808/

That's an interesting article: talks about prior acts aiming to restrict the trade, and how the New England slave trade was already mostly focused outside of the US, between Africa and the Caribbean.

I think there must have been something about the acts which some New Englanders were dissatisfied with, not that there was a desire to continue the trade.  After all, these opposing votes do not even come from Rhode Island, where you might expect.  Maybe those who opposed passage in the north were holding out for something stronger.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.036 seconds with 13 queries.